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OK, maybe Sports Illustrated had the Oilers on a paved road to glory this season, promoting them to third overall in their pre-season power rankings, but few who’ve watched this team wander the desert since 2007 expected a quick and dramatic turnaround.

The potential, and many of the parts, needed to be a good team are in place, but any notion that Oilers II, The Next Generation, would need an extra dressing room to contain all of their awesomeness is being shoved aside by an age-old truth — skill alone is never enough.

“It’s the best league in the world, and the best teams in the league work for everything they get, that’s why they’re successful,” said centre Sam Gagner, reflecting on Saturday’s 4-3 loss at the Saddledome, in which an older Flames team with considerably less high-end talent made it look easy.

“We’re a work in progress. I don’t think it’s going to come right away.

“We obviously have a lot of weapons and a lot of guys who have played together in the past, but it takes time.”

The Oilers were hoping to put Calgary in their rear-view mirror for good with this visit. Leave them wind-burned and overwhelmed. Instead, they got a refresher course in all of the lessons they were supposed to have learned last year.

Like, if you’re not smarter than the other guys, and if you don’t work as hard as they do, you can’t beat them, no matter how many junior sensations you add to the mix.

“We haven’t proven anything yet,” said captain Shawn Horcoff. “A bunch of first overall picks, if you look back in history, that doesn’t guarantee success. For every Pittsburgh and Chicago there’s a Columbus and Florida. It doesn’t guarantee anything.”

Just high hopes. But it’s a long, hard climb just to get from 14th to eighth, never mind Cup contender.

“We’re learning on the fly here,” said Gagner. “There are going to be some bumps in the road.”

Two of the early bumps, San Jose and Calgary, illustrate what the Oilers need to address.

They gave up 10 goals in the two losses while their vaunted offence has two even strength goals in four games.

Statistics mean very little at the best of times, and are almost worthless in just a four-game sample, but how they’re arriving at those numbers does concern Ralph Krueger most.

Offence in the NHL doesn’t come from making button-hooks and drop passes at the opposition blue-line, but that’s what the head coach is seeing.

“That’s something we have to understand, sometimes you have to give it up to get opportunity,” he said, adding the forwards still seem reluctant to get the puck deep and then go retrieve it.

“We addressed this and the group seemed to be prepared. I thought we got off to good cycles at the beginning, but then in the fifth and sixth shifts we started turning the puck over at the blue-line, started giving Calgary opportunities and we never could get our game back.”

With a defence that’s very young at one end and very slow at the other, spending as little time in your own zone is a good way to go. But the Oilers have given up the first goal in every game, taken too many penalties and have yet to hold a lead in regulation. That doesn’t come from a good forecheck.

And while it’s early, there was virtually no training camp and half of them didn’t play during the lockout, the same goes for the rest of the NHL.

As the Oilers get their legs, so will their opponents.

There’s no shortcut. In today’s NHL, if you want to be better than someone, you have to be smarter and harder, not just flashier.

“It’s the best league in the world,” said Devan Dubnyk. “Nothing is going to be easy.

Oilers 'still a work in progress,' says Gagner

OK, maybe Sports Illustrated had the Oilers on a paved road to glory this season, promoting them to third overall in their pre-season power rankings, but few who’ve watched this team wander the desert since 2007 expected a quick and dramatic turnaround.

The potential, and many of the parts, needed to be a good team are in place, but any notion that Oilers II, The Next Generation, would need an extra dressing room to contain all of their awesomeness is being shoved aside by an age-old truth — skill alone is never enough.

“It’s the best league in the world, and the best teams in the league work for everything they get, that’s why they’re successful,” said centre Sam Gagner, reflecting on Saturday’s 4-3 loss at the Saddledome, in which an older Flames team with considerably less high-end talent made it look easy.

“We’re a work in progress. I don’t think it’s going to come right away.